I am extremely pleased to be with you
here today to help announce this important partnership between the Ministry of
Environment, Municipality of Saida and the United Nations Development Programme
to quite literally transform the largest solid waste dump on the Lebanese coast
into a green space of public pride.

The timing of this initiative comes very appropriately in this 20th
anniversary year of the first “Earth Summit” in Rio, which put sustainable
development on the map, demonstrating that the short-sighted
policies of the past too often traded economic, social and environmental
objectives off against each other. We now understand that, while the act and
consequence of reducing environmental degradation can both stimulate employment
and reduce poverty, the reverse is also true: degrading the environment can undermine
a country’s long-term prospects for its economy and society.

Lebanon has made
commendable progress in recent years in taking action to restore and protect
its environment. Yet the number of pressing challenges that remain ahead is
extensive.The latest “State and Trends
of the Environment Report,” published by the Ministry of Environment, describes
increasingly heavy pressure placed on Lebanon’s limited natural resources by
economic growth and an expanding population. Amongst the most alarming issues
highlighted are poor land management, the loss of critical sources of
biodiversity, the continued emission of ozone depleting substances, inadequate
solid waste management, high levels of air pollution and a lack of access to
clean water.

In this regard, UNDP has placed a high priority on supporting Lebanon
for over two decades now through policy advice and tangible projects on the
ground, helping raise public awareness nationally while engaging the private
sector and civil society across the industrial, agricultural and energy sectors
as never before.

The undertaking we are inaugurating today is an exemplary embodiment of
these principles and this sense of urgency. The landfill looming over us has long been a
source of anguish for Saida and Lebanon as a whole. It releases noxious gases into
the air we are breathing, leachate in into the sea that sustains us, and gives
rise to sporadic fires which have continued, again recently, to be a source of acute
stress to the environment and the people of Saida. The impact has even reached
across the sea, with Cyprus for example having complained numerous times about
waste that has reached its shores.

We at UNDP therefore sincerely welcomed the request
of the Municipality of Saida to wield our extensive technical expertise to help
put an end to this environmental catastrophe. After receiving the endorsement of
the central government and the Ministry of Environment in particular, we
launched an international competitive bid to secure offers from the best
qualified and most competitive companies available on the global market. I’m
pleased to note that these offers will be received by UNDP and the evaluation
process initiated in just four days from now.

Finally, let me again thank the Municipality of Saida for their
commitment to a better life for the city and the trust they have in UNDP, to
the Ministry of Environment and particularly Minister Al-Khoury, for his
critical support in helping make this project a reality, and to the Members of
Parliament from Saida for their much-appreciated support throughout.

Ladies and gentlemen, the countdown has begun. I invite you to have
another look at the site, perhaps take a few photos for posterity, and then
propose that we meet again, there, in just a couple of years from now to
celebrate what will truly be a remarkable transformation.